


until the end

by angramainyu



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Half-Sibling Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 19:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11237661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angramainyu/pseuds/angramainyu
Summary: several one word themes about karna and arjuna, what they are and what they could have been.





	1. songbird.

**Author's Note:**

> [inspired by.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/677503/chapters/1240960)

Master takes them training to a forest every Tuesday.

It brings back memories, he thinks, every time he is surrounded by the greenery, the trees, the nearby sounds of animals that weaken next to the closer sound of enemies.

One day, he hears a songbird.

Atalanta is the first to hear it, her animalistic ears twitching and looking into a different direction. Marie Antoinette and Charles-Henri Sanson follow suit, and Gudako, who seconds ago was careful about the enemies surrounding them, becomes the cheerful young woman she always is when danger isn't nearby.

Arjuna lows his bow, too, and enjoys such peculiar sound.

It takes him back to a time when he was young and naive, where he genuinely (and perhaps foolishly) believed to be the best warrior of Hastinapura, the strongest archer, when he shot a bird's eye and everyone congratulated him, yelled his name, praised him.

When that young boy nobody really paid attention to shut everyone up with much better skills.

When Arjuna learned what true envy was.


	2. clock.

Time stops having a meaning after death. When he hears the ticking of the clock in the halls of Chaldea, it comes to him as a sound that is just there, really, a sound without meaning, and he forgets about it easily.

Time doesn't exist as it did before, when he could count the hours of the day to meet with his Guru, or before sunrise when he and his brothers travelled from a city to another. Time had a big meaning then, but now, it's a thing of the past.

Karna is struck before his eyes, blood jarring from his chest, a wound that was not inflicted by him, but by something red, sharp, and neither expected it. 

He starts glowing gold, starts dying, starts disappearing after time and time again Arjuna has searched for him, has been summoned over and over without Karna, without the only reason that allowed him to feel and exist.

Then, he remembers time exists, and even now, it influences him.

He is running out of time, when Karna, instead of delivering a finishing blow and with him taking Arjuna back to the Throne, deploys his Noble Phantasm with entirely other reasons, much nobler ones. He is running out of time, and with Karna disappearing before his eyes, Arjuna remembers how much time it took to find him again, to finally fight him again.

When he walks through the halls of Chaldea again, the ticking of the clock is far louder than it has ever been before.


	3. digits.

They have held hands before.

Of course, it took them a long time to ever reach that kind of intimacy, where Arjuna doesn't brush away at Karna's touch, where Karna doesn't expect Arjuna to strike him and draw blood, to spit at him distasteful words.

When they hold hands, they remain quiet, because Arjuna can't handle the sound of Karna's voice reminding him it was that man who touched his skin, whose digits were all over him, now.

On the skin of his hands, unprotected by his gloves, on his cheek when Karna cups them and leans in to kiss him.

Before Arjuna could realize, his entire body had been marked by Karna, and Karna's by him, too.


	4. rue.

Sometimes when Arjuna closes his eyes, he relieves it.

The sounds, and the lack of them. The scents, and how some were much stronger than others. The wheels that moved and the wheels that stopped. Then words, whispered to him by an once gentle voice that was far too forceful, demanding.

And then, his fingers relax.

Then there is nothing, then there's regret, then there's darkness that follows him wherever he goes.

Even after death, after he is summoned over and over, after he seeks his rue, when he relieves it when they are before each other and he says I've been looking for you, all this time.

Even then, there is only regret, that eats at him and sickens him and he hates it. He hates him.

Karna - who will seek him out, who will never mention his cowardice, who will fight him because this is what they are meant to do, born to be, but never to fix an overdue mistake.

Karna, his rue.


	5. rust.

After so many years, it has never rusted.

The arrow that means so much, that was shot once, only once, yet bears with it meaning much stronger than anything he might have possessed.

It's the same as it had been then - slim, with a round tip and a bright blue bottom that was as captivating as was painful. 

Neatly crafted, and while many would be enchanted, their eyes looking for the tiniest details, he has always refused to look at it for longer than minutes.

After so many years, it has never rusted.

Because like it, too, Arjuna's regrets and sorrow have never rusted.


End file.
